Athens, National Archaeological Museum

Q637187

That was not very clever: visiting the National Archaeological Museum on the last day of a two week trip through northern and central Greece. Of course, it was a nice summary of everything we’ve seen, but I think it would have been better to start over here. Ever a teacher, I might have used the museum’s splendid collection of sculpture to explain to my companions the development of Greek art.

That’s what you’ll find on the first floor: lots of sculpture in a series of rooms surrounding a large hall, which is devoted to Mycenaean art. There, you will find the golden objects from Mycenae that Schliemann found. The sculpture rooms surround it. Your tour starts with some kouroi and you can easily follow the growth to greater accuracy in representing the human body. When you’ve finished about a third of your tour, the Greek sculptors have mastered every aspect of anatomy, and you will pass along many classical sculptures, including two dazzling copies of the Diadumenus and the Cnidian Aphrodite. After that, more sculpture: the fourth century, Hellenism, and finally the Roman age.

On the ground floor, there’s also a series of rooms that contain metal art. Here, you will see the Anticythera Mechanism, but also collections of arrowheads from Marathon and Thermopylae. The Egyptian part – also on the ground floor – is a bit odd in a museum dedicated to Greek art, but the collection is too small to be exposed in a museum of its own and too important to keep stored away. In the Hellenistic part of the Egyptian collection, I noticed a statue of Hephaestion that I had never seen before.

Upstairs, you will find a marvelous collection of pottery and some objects that don’t fit anywhere else, like the Lemnian inscription, written in a language related to Etruscan. Next to it is a section dedicated to the investigations at Santorini, where some splendid frescoes have been found.

Do not forget to visit the basement. There’s a little café with a garden, where you will see some of the sculptures found in the Anticythera wreck. They have a certain beauty because they are partly eroded. I found the giant Heracles absolutely fascinating.

This museum was visited in 1989, 1992, 2004, 2007, 2010.

76 pictures related to this museum

Lead figurine of Athena	Piraeus, Theater, Head of Dionysus (classicizing)	Thebes (?), Block statue of Prince Horwedja, governor and high priest in Heliopolis	Eretria, Lekythos (Bosanquet Painter)
Eleusis, Temple F, Cecrops and Herse	Athens, Stoa of Attalus, Attalus II Philadelphus	Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Head of Hera	Nysa, Bouleuterion, "Little Refugee"
Eucratides II of Bactria	Thermopylae, Arrowheads	Thebes, Tombstone	Dodona, Figurine of Zeus Keraunos
Gomphoi, Relief of Odysseus and Amphicleia	Alexandria, Alexander the Great (part of a group with Hephaestion)	Mycene, Wall painting of a griffin with a warrior	Aegina, Temple of Apollo, Statue of a wounded warrior
Hellenistic ruler	Eretria, Gymnasium, Statue of Cleonicus	Megara, Statue of a Roman emperor (Trajan or Hadrian)	Mycene, Wall painting ("La Parisienne")
Oropos, Aeolian-Ionic capital	Athens, Kerameikos, Alexander with a Lion's Pelt	Lycian portrait of Omphale	Mycene, Boar's tusk helmet
Melos, Statue of Poseidon	Megara, Statue of Dionysus	Athens, Agora, Late Geometric pyxis	The fight for the body of Patroclus.
Sparta, Statue of Julia Aquilia Severa, damaged after her death	Megiste, Bellerophon sarcophagus.	Piraeus, Head of a bearded god	Larisa, Tombstone of a man with a hat
Zeus and Ganymedes	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of antelopes	Athens, Kerameikos, Skull of Myrthis	Piraeus, Funerary stela of Damasistrate
Athens, Kerameikos, Siren	Smyrna, Portrait of Caligula, reworked to resemble Titus	Argos, Theater, Statue of Aphrodite	Athens, Kerameikos, Dipylon krater
Sais, Temple of Neith, Statuette	Eleusis, Tombstone of a warrior	Eleusis, Relief of a drunk Heracles	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of boxers
Argos, Heraion, Amazonomachy	Aegina, Ptolemy VI Philometor	Piraeus, Statue of a woman or Demeter	Artemisium, Statue of Zeus
Larisa, Tombstone of Polyxena	Lebadeia, Relief of Trophonius	Athens, Statue of a Minotaur	Chalcis-Vromousa, Head of a woman (Roman copy of a Greek original)
Eleusis, Relief of Demeter, Triptolemus, and Kore	Argos, Heraion, Sima	Marathon, Arrowheads	Athens, Kerameikos, Base of the statue of a wrestler
Epidauros, Temple of Artemis, Nike	Pharsalus, Krater with a four-horse chariot	Athens, Pnyx, Lenormant Athena	Mycene, Dagger with lion hunt
Corinth, Relief of a hoplite	Thebes, Head of Artemis	Corinth, Plate with Demeter	Mycene, House of the Warrior Krater, Warrior Krater
Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Palladion	Olympia, Head of the boxer Satyros	Piraeus, Julian the Apostate	Decree of Tefnakht
Piraeus, Votive stela of a reclining Dionysus	Aegina, Tombstone of a young man, holding a bird	Lemnos, Tombstone of an Etruscan (?) warrior	Alexandria, Hephaestion (part of a group with Alexander)
Athens, Temple of Zeus, Portrait of Polemo of Laodicea	Athens, Varvakeion Athena	Piraeus, Funerary stela with ball players	Argos, Relief of the Doryphorus of Polykleitos